A Tale of a Lonely Parish eBook

They walked on for some minutes in silence. John
reflected that he had witnessed a phase of Mrs. Goddard’s
character of which he had been very far from suspecting
the existence. He had not hitherto imagined her
to be a woman of quick temper or sharp speech.
His idea of her was formed chiefly upon her appearance.
Her sad face, with its pathetic expression, suggested
a melancholy humour delighting in subdued and tranquil
thoughts, inclined naturally to the romantic view,
or to what in the eyes of youths of twenty appears
to be the romantic view of life. He had suddenly
found her answering him with a sharpness which, while
it roused his wits, startled his sensibilities.
But he was flattered as well. His instinct and
his observation of Mrs. Goddard when in the society
of others led him to believe that with Mr. and Mrs.
Ambrose, or even with Mr. Juxon, she was not in the
habit of talking as she talked with him. He was
therefore inwardly pleased, so soon as his passing
annoyance had subsided, to feel that she made a difference
between him and others.

It was quite true that she made a distinction, though
she did so almost unconsciously. It was perfectly
natural, too. She was young in heart, in spite
of her thirty years and her troubles; she had an elastic
temperament; to a physiognomist her face would have
shown a delicate sensitiveness to impressions rather
than any inborn tendency to sadness. In spite
of everything she was still young, and for two years
and a half she had been in the society of persons
much older than herself, persons she respected and
regarded as friends, but persons in whom her youth
found no sympathy. It was natural, therefore,
that when time to some extent had healed the wound
she had suffered and she suddenly found herself in
the society of a young and enthusiastic man, something
of the enforced soberness of her manner should unbend,
showing her character in a new light. She herself
enjoyed the change, hardly knowing why; she enjoyed
a little passage of arms with John, and it amused her
more than she could have expected to be young again,
to annoy him, to break the peace and heal it again
in five minutes. But what happened entirely failed
to amuse the squire, who did not regard such diversions
as harmless; and moreover she was far from expecting
the effect which her treatment of John Short produced
upon his scholarly but enthusiastic temper.

CHAPTER IX.

The squire had remarked that John Short seemed to
have a peculiar temper, and Mrs. Goddard had observed
the same thing. What has gone before sufficiently
explains the change in John’s manner, and the
difference in his behaviour was plainly apparent even
to Mr. and Mrs. Ambrose. The vicar indeed was
wise enough to see that John was very much attracted
by Mrs. Goddard, but he was also wise enough to say
nothing about it. His wife, however, who had
witnessed no love-making for nearly thirty years,